News

Tencent Music Entertainment tipped to file for IPO this week

Spotify’s direct public offering is still fresh in the memory, but another much anticipated music-streaming public offering – this time an IPO rather than a DPO – may be imminent.

Local media reports suggest that Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) may file for its IPO in the US as early as this Friday. The valuation (or at least the hoped-for valuation) is pegged at between $29bn and $31bn, which would put TME at Spotify scale from day one, based on the latter’s current stock price.

Chinese news site Sina claimed yesterday that the IPO filing will reveal that TME’s revenues were around $753m in 2016, rising to an expected $2.6bn in 2018. Yet also – and here’s a difference to the usual streaming financials – Tencent Music is turning a profit. A big one: $283m in 2017 according to the report.

Tencent has more than 700 million monthly active listeners across its three streaming services: QQ Music, Kuwo and Kugou, with around 25 million of them paying for a subscription. The IPO – and the disclosure of information that comes with it – will give the music industry a better insight into the dynamics not just of Tencent’s music business, but of China as a whole.